How to Say Happy Birthday in Japanese

To say happy birthday in Japanese, say otanjoubi omedetou (お誕生日おめでとう). To be polite — with a coworker, an in-law, or anyone older — add gozaimasu: otanjoubi omedetou gozaimasu (お誕生日おめでとうございます). The heart of the phrase is omedetou (おめでとう), "congratulations."

Get those two versions down and you are ready for any birthday, from a child's party to a formal note to your boss.

Happy birthday, casual and polite

The casual otanjoubi omedetou (お誕生日おめでとう) is what you say to friends and family. The polite otanjoubi omedetou gozaimasu (お誕生日おめでとうございます) adds the same gozaimasu that turns arigato into arigato gozaimasu — a small tail that signals respect.

Drop otanjoubi ("birthday") entirely and you are left with plain omedetou, which stands on its own as "congrats."

Omedetou: one word for every celebration

The beauty of omedetou (おめでとう) is how far it stretches. It covers weddings, graduations, new jobs, and the new year — anywhere English would reach for "congratulations."

That is why the New Year greeting shares its shape: akemashite omedetou (あけましておめでとう). Learn omedetou once and you can pass along good wishes at almost any happy occasion, which makes it one of the highest-value words a beginner can pick up. If you are visiting in January, our guide to Japanese New Year greetings is worth a look.

At a Japanese birthday party

Here is a delightful surprise: at a Japanese birthday party, the birthday song is almost always the English "Happy Birthday to You," sung in English. There is no separate Japanese version in common use.

The cake is keeki (ケーキ) and the gift is purezento (プレゼント) — both borrowed from English and written in katakana, the script Japanese reserves for foreign loanwords. Spotting these katakana words in the wild is a fun reminder of just how much English lives comfortably inside everyday Japanese. To wish someone well for the year ahead, try the phrase below.

Turning twenty: hatachi

One birthday stands above the rest. Twenty is the traditional age of adulthood in Japan — the age you can legally drink and smoke — and turning twenty, hatachi (二十歳), is a genuine milestone.

It is honored nationwide each January on Coming of Age Day (成人の日, seijin no hi), when twenty-year-olds dress up — many young women in bright furisode kimono — gather at local ceremonies, and mark the step into adult life. It is one of the most photographed days on the Japanese calendar.

Keep learning Japanese

A warm otanjoubi omedetou is the kind of phrase that makes someone's day. Pick up more celebration words with our free Japanese greetings phrases, then practice them with audio and spaced repetition in the Pretalk app — so the next birthday you hear, you will know exactly what to say.